


Shell

by justanotherdavina



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aged-Up Peter Parker, Fluff, M/M, Merman Peter Parker, No Emotional Manipulation, Quentin Beck is a good guy in this, but he is deep inside, marine biologist Quentin Beck, peter is 25 in this, quentin beck is not impressed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 17:43:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20029786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanotherdavina/pseuds/justanotherdavina
Summary: Thinking he's being smart, Peter gifts Quentin a rather unique shell to impress him.After all, a marine biologist would never understand that is a fossilized valve,right?





	Shell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [99MillionMiles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/99MillionMiles/gifts).

> Please, note that in this **Peter is 25** while Quentin is 34.  
This is a gift for [99MillionMiles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/99MillionMiles/). I really hope you'll like this, dear.

The weather had been merciful that day, not too hot, not even strangely cool for the season. With the house being placed near the beach, anyway, it was not weird that at night temperatures would drop, sometimes even reaching 70 degrees Fahrenheit.  
Quentin stared into the blue vastness of the ocean in front of him. All around, both the sky and the water were almost the same color, blue melting into black, only brightened by the shimmering ring of the crescent moon.  
The only hint to a different shade of color in the painting was the red spot at the end of his cigarette. Whenever he dragged in the smoke, the ash would burn red and collect there, waiting for a simple movement of the man’s wrist to fall into the ashtray.  
With his elbows propped on the balcony, and body all wrapped in comfortable and warm clothes, Quentin finally finished his cigarette after a few more drags.  
He was pressing it against the ashtray’s bottom, forcing it to put out, when something in front of him caught his attention. Little by little, he stopped breathing out the smoke through his nose and let the remaining of it swirling into his closed mouth, in his throat.  
Before him, something quite strange was happening. It was not unusual for Quentin to witness large fishes in the ocean, actually, it was very common; but precisely because he was accustomed to live close to the sea, Quentin was sure he could recognize a fish or aquatic mammals from… _something else._  
Never had he seen a dorsal fin moving swiftly and caressing the water like that in his life, let alone the glance he had managed to take of the caudal one. It was fringed and quite wide, shaped like anything Quentin had seen so far.  
He let go of the smoke in a rushed puff of air past his lips and hurried, walking down the white wooden stairs, until his feet came in contact with the cool sand.  
It was not the first time and for once, Quentin was sure he had seen it right. For months he had been seeing the strange creature swimming close to his home. The first time it happened it was when he was too drunk to even remember what it looked like, but the second one had been too vivid not to remember: the creature had seemed to be braver and come closer to the shore, peering out from the water’s surface with its head.  
Quentin well knew the Odyssey by Homer, he had read it more than once for school and then university’s purposes, he knew what mermaids looked like, but his rational part was not inclined to think that could be anywhere close to being true.  
He walked up to the ocean’s shore barefoot, eyes fixed on the shining water. Squinting his eyes to the darkness, he tried to take a better look, curious he might finally see something.

“I know you’re here,” he said softly, talking to the waves. He must have really looked like a fool, if anyone were to see him. “Please, show up.” He tried, his eyes wandering from one spot to the other on the water. But he could not see anything in particular, apart from little waves and slim trails of lather left by them.  
The water touched his bare feet, wetting them with cold hands, and Quentin flinched a bit, almost having forgotten about that.  
He gazed at the ocean for some more time, before he gave up and turned his back to it, in favor of walking back home.

֍

“Kid,” he called, with a warning gesture of his hand, “just don’t.” He admonished, walking up to where his apprentice was to make his point clearer.

“Why do you think it’s so special?” Peter asked, curious. In front of them, towering over the table Quentin used for his resources, a jar made of glass was making show of itself with its content.

“I think it might be a fossil, but it’s better to wait, before I get my hands on job.” He explained, looking at the fossilized valve through the glass.

“It looks like just another shell to me,” Peter shrugged, not even trying to hide his skepticism.

“I can’t believe someone actually gave you a degree in biology, do you even imagine what you are staring at?” Quentin’s eyebrow quirked up for a couple of seconds, but his good heart prevented him from actually trying and scold Peter or drag him into a lecture.

Peter crossed arms to his chest. “Guess I studied.” He replied simply.

“Sure.” Quentin went back to catalog various pieces he had previously recouped from the ocean’s death grip, scribbling notes and numbers on the small plastic bags’ tags, before putting them in different boxes, all with their own purposes.  
Peter put his hands down on the desk, still quietly admiring the shell. He turned his attention to Quentin’s back, watching him move silently and comfortably through the cartoon boxes for a couple of seconds.

“What do you want to do with it?” He asked.

Quentin hummed, “Nothing much. Just going to analyze a couple of things, understand where it comes from and how the hell it finished in your hands.” He replied, eventually turning back around to offer him a smile, which transformed itself into a curious look right after. “Where did you say you found that?” He asked, reaching for his notepad and pencil.  
In the process, some papers fell from the counter he used to register new things he might have found.

Peter swallowed. “Um, I’m – I think I – not sure I remember correctly,” he stammered out, trying to make some sense of his words.  
Quentin seemed not to be discouraged by Peter’s hesitancy. “Anything would help.” He added.

“I think – maybe, yeah, of course, yes, I found it on the shore.”

Quentin furrowed his brows, tapping the pencil against his lips. “Wasn’t it while you were swimming?”

“Yeah, y-yeah of course, I was swimming, then I – then I reached the shore and I – I found that. I stepped on it.” Peter said, trying to sound convincing.

He blinked, “You stepped on it?” Quentin inquired, sounding almost offended. It wasn’t his fault he wasn’t convinced. At all.

“It wasn’t my fault!” Peter said quickly, “I didn’t see that, I still had some water in my eyes and the sun was really hot that day, I couldn’t see anything, so – yeah, I stepped on it, ‘cause I didn’t see it.”  
Quentin, at a loss of words, wrote down a couple of things, before letting go of his notepad to run his hands over his face.

He sighed, still doubtful. “Alright,” he started, now looking at Peter, “we will think later about it. Now...” his gaze trailed off from a spot in the surroundings to Peter’s face. “Anything new on the benthic environment you were studying?”

Peter shook his head. “I’m on a standstill.” He replied, miserable, “maybe that was not the right thing to start from.”

“Come on,” Quentin said, making Peter instantly look up at him. “go home. You worked hard these days, and you couldn’t have the time to do what you really need to.”

“But – Quentin, I am –”

“You are, what?” The man waited for a response with a surprised look on his face, but then it all softened in a warm smile. “You can always come tomorrow, you know? I am sure I can manage to catalog these things by myself.” He said, “it’s almost done, anyway.”  
And there it was. There it was the look, the smile, the coziness, the warmness that had made Peter go head over hills for Quentin the first time he saw him. In the beginning, it was not a crush; Peter thought it was fine to find attractive someone who was, indeed, attractive. The problem was Peter had felt his knees starting to weaken more and more, each time he had to meet up with his friend and mentor.  
He had blamed his age and inexperience, because as stupid as it might have sounded, being twenty-five and having to feel something for someone whose eyes were in love only with the ocean was not easy.  
That is why he had thought that bringing Quentin that shell would have been a good idea. He had been _so_ naive and hopeful at the same time, when he had knocked on the man’s door and waited for him. He really did not know what to expect anyway. Maybe a soft kiss. Yes, maybe that would have been nice.  
Too bad it did not happen.

“I can help with anything else, if you need?” He tried, adding a shrug to his words to look more comfortable than he was.  
Quentin pondered on it, looking at the guy across him. With his arms still folded to his chest, he tapped his bicep a couple of times, thoughtfully.

“You know what?” He said out of the blue, glancing down at the watch around his wrist.

“What?” Peter repeated, clueless.

“It’s almost lunchtime,” Quentin said, grabbing his little, black backpack. “Wanna come with me?” He asked then, easily.

Peter swallowed around nothing but air in his throat and tried to organize his thoughts. “Yeah – yes, why not.” He said, earning a smile from Quentin.

“Great,” he replied, “go ahead, I’ll join you in a second.”  
Peter nodded his head and taking back his phone from the resource’s desk, he walked out the door, glancing swiftly at the other man.  
He looked around himself once he got out, trying hard to calm down and find some space left in his stomach after the rich breakfast he had had in the morning.

“Okay, kid,” Quentin said then, closing and then locking the door behind his back, “let’s go.”

The water was a bit rougher later during the day. It always was like that in the afternoon: the wind would push down on the ocean until waves formed. They refracted against the sandy shore with force, leaving their shadows there even after withdrawing.  
With his eyes fixed on the water’s edge, Quentin chewed his food quietly, distantly thinking about the creature who would not show itself.  
Peter was eating as well, to be fair, but his first concern was that Quentin was not looking at him. Yes, he had accepted the man’s invitation to lunch, but that did not exactly meant he was comfortable eating in front of him.  
It was just his instinct, which he usually trusted a lot, telling him not to eat with strangers, or with someone he did not know well.  
If anything, it helped that Quentin did not look so interested in Peter’s double cheeseburger with french fries.

“What convinced you to study marine biology?” Quentin asked all of a sudden, with an unreadable expression on his face.

Peter swallowed around the food, while the many ways in which he could respond to the question started to fly in his head. “I think I – I really liked dolphins when I was a child.” He explained, immediately sounding stupid to himself after closing his mouth.

Quentin seemed impressed, though. “Dolphins?”

Peter nodded. “Yeah,” he took a sip of water, “they’ve always looked friendly to me.”

Quentin hummed in response, bringing a forkful of his seafood salad to his mouth. “Ever met one?” He asked then, before pushing it past his lips.

For some reasons, a bright red alarm started to go off inside Peter’s head and all his senses came to life in a matter of seconds. In Quentin’s body, though, there was no sign of him trying and push him on trial. On the other hand, the man’s eyes were soft and calming to look at, it seemed like he was trying to tranquilize him, even if there was no actual reason to.

“I did,” Peter replied eventually, “once.” He added quickly.

“Y’know –” Quentin cleaned his lips with a napkin and relaxed against the chair’s backrest. “– you are the weirdest kid I’ve ever met.” He admitted, with an amused smile on his lips. “Always looking so all up in your head and dreamy. You even seem a bit twitchy,”  
Peter just stared, his cheeseburger already forgotten on the nice plate the guy had brought it onto. He was so sure he was showing Quentin one of his stupidest looks ever, being this close to gaping at him.

“I’m just –”

“Anxious?” Quentin tried.

“Anxious?” He repeated, making a face at the word. “I’m not anxious, I just have some problems when it comes to explain myself,”

“Maybe you’re just tense,”

Peter frowned, “Isn’t it a synonym for anxious?”

“Yeah, technically, yes,” Quentin indulged, with a nod, “I’ll give you that.”

They fell into silence, only interrupted by the soft talking and whispering coming from the tables close to theirs. “Maybe I am.” Peter said, in a sigh.

Quentin gave him a look.

“I am. Anxious, I mean.” He elaborated, feeling the urgent need to just jump out of those weird clothes and dive into the ocean right away. Instead, he put his elbows on the table and made himself smaller into the space of his shoulders.

At that, the man nodded. “Tomorrow you could help me analyze the valve you found, how does it sound?” He asked, completely out of the blue.  
Peter rose his eyes back on him and gaped for real now, not knowing how to answer.  
“What?” Quentin asked, staring back at him, “Do I have something in my teeth or somethin’?”

Peter rushed to shake his head. “No no, no, just – I was thinking, yeah, um… alright? I mean, this is why I came to you after all.” He said, feeling the words growing into his mouth, one onto each other on his tongue. Somehow, they did not feel right.

Quentin smiled at him. “Great,” he said, standing up and giving his muscles a little stretch.

“Where are you going?” Peter asked, curiously.

“I need to get back to work, but you already did your job for today.”

Peter made a face at that. “I arrived late at the shed, archived just some seaweeds and filled in some report with basic information. I’m not tired.” He said, sounding very sure of himself.

Unfortunately, Quentin did not seem to have the same opinion. “I know, you don’t look tired. But I am,” he explained, looking effortlessly beautiful even with few hours of sleep on his shoulders. “might use some hours of quality sleep.”

Peter stood up as well, “Sure,” he cracked out, “I’ll see you to– tomorrow, right?” He asked, trying to ignore the fact that he was almost blowing everything off with just a wrong word.  
His hatred for human language was still there, burning under the ashes and he could not just ignore it.

“‘Course,” Quentin said, handling his backpack, “Be sure to be there at 9 am, we’re gonna beat the shit out of that fossilized valve until it tells us where it comes from.” He announced, proud of himself.  
“Don’t forget to bring your computer and the books I gave you a couple of weeks ago –” he started walking towards the exit, “– you read them, right?” He asked.

“I did,” Peter replied, walking beside him, “I’ll bring them back to you tomorrow.” He said, once they were out the small place they just had lunch.  
Something clicked. “Shouldn’t we –”

“Yes, I’m waiting for you to go away,” Quentin said, with a small laughter. If all, Peter could do nothing but almost melt into lather and just stay there on the floor until someone would pity him enough to throw what rested of him back in the ocean.

“You don’t have to pay for me, I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself.” He tried to defend himself, actually forcing himself to stop staring into Quentin’s blue eyes for _just_ a second.

Quentin’s lips parted in a surprised expression. “I know, of course I know,” he said, still smiling that nice and warm smile Peter would never be tired of, “but this time’s on me. Can you let me have it?”

Peter was not one to be easily persuaded into doing something, but he really could not resist the man’s eyes on him like that. He was too weak for those eyes, he was too weak for that stupid human.  
“Alright,” he indulged, “I’ll let you have your moment. See you tomorrow?” He asked again, just to be sure.

“Yes,” Quentin responded, already walking up to the girl behind the counter, “don’t forget, 9 am.”

Peter sighed, resigned, “Yeah, right.” He said to a Quentin now too busy speaking softly to the young lady to pay any more attention to him.  
Peter mumbled a quiet _bye_ to himself while still staring at the man not so far from him and walked away.

That night, when Quentin gazed at the ocean from the balcony, he had no doubt left.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading ! I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
